Rhino Ramblings

A fully charged Rhino car

My personal and auto batteries were drained this month.  I arrived a day early for a 2 day staff retreat in Cambridge, MD to play a solo round of golf with the partial goal of recharging my internal battery after the difficulties described in the second half of this blog.  While I could claim it was part of the recharging, in reality it was pure laziness that drove me (unlike my car which it turned out could not drive me) to decide to drive the very short way from the hotel to golf course parking lot.  I pop into the car and hit the button and nothing occurs.  At that point I figured I must have left something on or otherwise drained the car battery.  I ended up walking to the course (and played one of my best rounds ever).  I sent a text to a co-worker/friend who was attending the offsite and asked if she could give me a jumpstart.  So that evening she arrives, we try to jumpstart and get nothing for our efforts. Fortunately a very nice and helpful hotel engineer (Alesta – my guardian angel) notices us and helps out.  He removes the battery, checks the local auto place to make sure they had a replacement and when we return from the store, installs the battery. Phew –a fully charged battery.

The car battery turned out to be a metaphor for my personal battery (or vice versa) over the past month. I have never felt so drained for so long.  My assumption is that I picked up some respiratory bug while in Europe.  The day after I landed back in the US of A, I drove to Hershey for a 2 day conference.  The first evening I was having trouble taking deep breaths.  A friend knew I was in unusual shape as I asked for an Advil (I have no issue with pills but avoid them unless really needed).  She had none and I went to my room early and tires and achy.  Woke up in the middle of the night both aching in my center core and in pain in my back right.  So bad I almost went to the ER which is something I have never even considered in my life.  But I was able to fall asleep sitting up and woke up without the pain and a little refreshed (aided by the then obtained Advil). For the next few days I was unable to walk very far without being tired, could not take in any deep breaths and with time lost my appetite.  When I did return home I contemplated going to the doctor the next day (I avoid doctors as much as I avoid pills). The next day however I felt enough better that it was pretty clear a bug that I needed to muddle through (I also took my first home covid test – negative results).  It ended up being a 336 hour (2 week) bug.  Walking up a flight of stairs required a stop halfway up and a sit down or lie down at the end.  At one point during a walk with my dog Midas I had visions of walking with an oxygen tank.  I was never not able to breath, but any deep breath was met with an ache that bordered on pain. Turns out oxygen is an important component of energy levels.  The first day that I could take full breaths and then walk, go upstairs, etc. without difficulty was the day after I arrived in Cambridge to play golf. Perhaps the car battery drainage was a magical transference of energy from my battery to me (Nah – just an interesting coincidence that makes for a hopefully interesting blog).